Status Updates From Chasing Hope: A Reporter's ...

…while the aim of changes in terminology is to become more inclusive, the result is often to be more exclusive. The linguistic tinkering works for some educated elites, but bewilders working class voters. It also sets up more hurdles to feeling part of a cause. People must know the right code words or they may feel unwelcome…

A favorite quote of Robert F Kennedy:
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And those ripples build a current, which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

…At the time, I saw my success through the prism of luck because I didn’t have the vocabulary of privilege, but of course that’s what it was.
Good fortune isn’t randomly distributed, except in the sense that we’re all subject to the lottery of birth. But it is closely linked to race, class and the country one is born in. One advantage leads to another…

I saw that luck, both bad and good, is cumulative and self-reinforcing…

We measure poverty with metrics of income and wealth, but that doesn’t get at the real gaps.
…the kind of poverty that mattered most had to do with how infrequently children were read to, or hugged, or told they were loved; how often they were beaten, or saw their mom beaten; how often they were afraid, or told that a boy should fight; or that the measure of a man is the ability to beat up someone else…

…we bear moral obligations when we win the lottery of birth.